✅ Bar/restaurant at the edge of the car park (not always open) – further bars near the supermarket

🏁A good location, found whilst exiting another rejected disappointing excuse for a 21st century nearby camp-site that, like many, had an appealing façade masking a gypsy interior.

Back on the road again

Side window view from the wilding spot

and from a few yards further out on the beach …. the view north ….

…. and south ….

The same view the next morning

Tilley after her early morning ‘dipping a toe’

Pebbles and froth

The staff of life ..

Part of the prom, the land on the right fronts the beach and is a designated protected area for rare flora and fauna

Another view of the prom

Twernt’s wilding spot, the lit prom is just a few yards beyond. Looks like the tree was planted by a bent Valencian politician, don’t know which one but there are a lot to choose from

We could have (and wanted to) stay longer (all winter would have suited us at this location!) but without WiFi and PC juice we moved on after 3 days/2 nights – destination Peniscola

The swan-song picture of our trip – the sun is setting over ‘aired-up’ motor-homes here at the ‘Stop Go’ site in Peniscola. ‘Twon’t be long before Twernt follows suit.

Well, it’s time to move on folks.

Our winter trip has been a success – before we set out there was much that was unknown to us and our overwhelming experience is that the reality has been better than we had imagined.

The prime aim was to escape the British winter, and, having experienced what southern Europe has to offer, we are converted!

Wintering in Spain? Long may you run!

It’s a tired cliché ‘that folk are all different’ and one element in our character is that there is v.little appeal for us in ‘exploring’ other cultures, landscapes, historical ‘palaces’, et al, when our core ‘respect’ lies in pan-theistic origins and an acceptance that man’s occupation of this universal ‘blip’ named Earth, amounts to being no more than a ‘Universal Triviality’ – we enjoy ‘Reality’ (awe and wonder of the natural state of what is), we give a nod to what was, but ‘pigeon-hole’ it where it belongs.

I therefore don’t have the patience to spend my time delving into, or reading about, that which ‘bores me silly’ – all I can see is wasted lives and wasted time creating stuff that has no purposeful role in matters of greater importance. Plus, I love our family, our dogs, Neil Young, Derby County and a myriad of other stuff – proof that the cliché is correct – we’re all different!

We’ve had a few hassles with our chosen mode of travel but it’s been very much as Pirsig said, “The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn’t any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it’s right. If it disturbs you it’s wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.”

That which has ‘disturbed’ us will be changed for the next time around.

Some wise geezer or other said that “There is nothing permanent except change” and another, equally as wise geezer, said that “Ignorance is always afraid of change”.

We had hoped that Twernt would last us 2-3 years before needing to make changes, well, we found the flaws and our many ignorances don’t include a fear of change!

We have monitored daily temperatures down here since we arrived at the beginning of October last year and two key regions always appear at the top of our list of 5 locations.

The best temperatures are in the Andalucia (Costa del Sol) followed by Murcia.

We therefore intend to head down to the Casares area for our second winter escape.

For now, we will return to the UK, we may prepare and sell Twernt over the coming months and we may buy a caravan and tow vehicle for our next trip down.

Blog-wise, this is my last post as I want to concentrate my keyboard/mouse usage on getting the on-line business re-started.

I will continue to update the ‘stats’ pages until we return to the UK and may possibly re-open this blog once our next trip is started – it may be with Twernt or it could be with a caravan and tow-car – probably called ‘Twill’ – ‘Twill stay in one place whilst we use the tow car to get out more!.

We’ve made some brilliant new friends through ‘Twernting’ and we look forward to seeing them all again soon. There’s a connection that we share with them as we venture forward towards the inevitable.

Finally, when I started this blog it was intended only for keeping our family and friends in touch with our movements as we travelled – it has become much more.

In just over 5 months there have been over 33,000 hits on the blog, over 240 followers from more than 60 countries – THANK YOU one and all for checking out this ‘blog-on-the-webscape’.

We hope that your times are all that you want them to be – we’ve had the best of times over the last 5 months and we look forward to repeating it in a more chilled-out, ‘pensioner-friendly’ way.

Thanks Chris, found it difficult to multi-process (being male!) so I had to make the decision to end the blog for now – Amanda intends to post pictures to the Facebook page so more may appear there. Regards, Roy

Thank you, thank you Mags, I will re-assess ‘blog world’ once the on-line business is rockin’ again. Look forward to reading about your new adventures, I hope that you have safe and happy travels Maggie. Roy

You want a caravan? Here’s the answer but £50k fully specced. http://inos.co.uk/inos-70/ You get a potential 500kg payload but it’ll need a BIG tug to tow it. Got invited into one at Chirk and for a ‘van it was amazing.

Woah, that is some caravan, if we do go down that route (and it will be at a fifth of that price … or less!), it will only be short-ish term.

Back in the UK in a few weeks and will mail you when we’re back. We’re hoping that the UK has one of those great March’s weather-wise else we could yet see some snow … don’t even want to think about that!

Have thoroughly enjoyed your Blog and keeping up with your travels. Hope you find the set up you want ready for your next winter trip, but whatever you decide, enjoy and stay as different as you like 🙂

Thanks Sandra, we have a master plan, just have to see how it goes! They could probably certify me as being something or other as I get more satisfaction out of something like a modern mass produced but well engineered cigarette rolling tin than out of traipsing around a load of places of minor (& some major!) historical interest. It’s all about what fires up your interest and what sends you to sleep quickly really……zzzzzzzzzzzz
Hope that you & Iain continue to enjoy your travels and I will be keeping a close eye on your blog, we’ve abandoned thoughts of Italy, etc. now as Spain has got all that we’re looking for – winter-wise.

Great finale Roy. During our full timing 1988 to 1999 we too roamed around Spain and Portugal. France, Germany, Belgium and Holland too for that matter, but truth to tell, here’ing and there’ing proved hard work for us even though we mostly had a 38′ American mansion and tow car for some of those years. The small 21′ Chinook American camper with Wells Cargo box trailer proved more convenient, and the Dethlefs caravan with MPV even more so, although forever scratting around looking for laundrettes and other life sustaining facilities were in themselves a challenge at times. I do believe you would be happy with something like our previous MB Viano or even the excellent i800 MPV that we and our two wonderful pooches share now. The 4 of you could even kip in it the odd night or two if you fancy a little excursion. As your posting says, we are all different but for us our best time was when we settled for half or a full winter in one place where we could mix and mingle with knowledgable Brits. and locals, but of course you need to speak or be prepared to learn to speak some of the language of the latter. Before camping La Cala just south of Benidorm was sold to build hi-rise hotels we had several part and full time winters there and loved every minute. Spain does have it’s prettiness as your photos will attest, but by and large we found it to be much of a muchness and quite raw in places, especially some of the rural campsites. In my opinion the “real” Spain is still a tip that most Brits. that we know just aren’t ready for. Most need a modicum of modernity, beaches, paseo’s, restaurants, entertainment, Wi-Fi. That sort of thing. Cave man camping just wasn’t and never would be our thing. Our year caravanning around outback Australia proved that. Anyway, safe journey north as you go and do keep in touch as we’d love a good natter. Our home barbie is permanently connected. xxx

Thanks Jim, we know where we want to get to but will just have to sort out our budget once we’ve costed it all up (includes getting back into property – but not in England!), add in the fact that we’re in no rush and that’s why we’re heading the way that I stated.

We will most likely settle in one place for next winter, just hope that having a vehicle to mooch around in will save us from going up the wall – we’ve done a few longer stays and I think that our ‘itchy feet’ came more from the fact that there were more areas that we wanted to see and we then wanted to press on and see them – that won’t be the case during our next trip later this year.

Agree with you on the caveman camping thing but change takes time – just look at how much they’ve improved in the last 50 years – can’t imagine what they’ll be like in another 50 years and won’t be able to find out anyway!

Shake the barbie down, we’ll be there on the first sunny day (July?). Take care all. xxx

Looks like you’ve got the same idea as us, after two winters away, we’re thinking of buying a caravan (with a huge awning) to spend winter in Spain. Then also a small moho (van conversion) for the rest of the year.to do our European travelling in – and some short breaks away in the winter – also a spare room for visitors to stay. No intention of EVER towing it, buy a caravan in Spain and leave in storage over summer (about 1 Euro a night, delivery to campsite 20 Euros). Problem is I LOVE our current van, so it’s a big decision to change it. It’s just too big though when on the move. But a waste to have such an expensive ornament to be in one place for a long time. Love being on campsite in one place, must be like living in a commune and you wouldn’t get the same camaraderie in an apartment. Sorry you didn’t swing by to meet us when you were on your way to Calpe, would have loved to meet up – maybe next year.

I don’t really mind towing a caravan Wendy – used to pull one with a VW Autosleeper campervan in the 80’s, last had one in 2007; Could have 2 caravans – one in Spain and one in the walled garden plus a smaller MoHo for ‘commuting’ between them.
We’re also looking at renting for next year, it costs the about the same as, or less than, many long-term campsite deals – it’s the bath and not faffing around with ‘life-support’ things that appeals but, as you say, we would lose the great feel of being on a campsite – only this morning we had someone (Ali of Ali & Nick/OffExploring) knock on our door (well, window actually) and say “Hello, you’re Twernt on Tour, I follow your blog” – brilliant! (even though I was still in my dressing gown! – it was only 11:00am!) and this couldn’t happen if we rented a gaff.
Too many options, maybe we should give them all a go for a few years!
Yes, we tried to get into San Antonio just so we could come over and say hello. Sadly it was full – we had driven by the rear of your camping – didn’t have our ACSI card (later discovered via Eric that we could probably have used our on-line receipt!!!) – area looked great.
One of these days……